Taliban appeal for more aid after deadly earthquake
KABUL - Vital medical supplies reached hospitals on Saturday in the remote area of Afghanistan hit by an earthquake that killed more than 1000 people this week, as the country’s Taliban government appealed for more international aid.
Authorities have called off the search for survivors in the mountainous southeastern region near the Pakistani border following’s Wednesday’s 6.1-magnitude quake, which also injured about 2000 people and damaged or destroyed 10,000 homes.
Aftershocks on Friday killed at least five more people in the area some 160 km (100 miles) southeast of the capital Kabul, and medical staff said rudimentary healthcare facilities were hampering their efforts to help the injured.
“Those injured that were in a bad condition and needed operations, (which) we can’t do here, have been sent to Kabul,” said Abrar, who goes by one name, the manager of a hospital in Paktika, the worst-affected province.
In Kabul, hospitals more used to treating victims of war have opened their wards to earthquake victims.
“Usually we admit only war related patients or patients in life threatening conditions, but in this case we decided to make an exception in order to support the Afghan people,” said Stefano
Sozza, the country director for Emergency Hospital, an Italian-funded surgical centre for war victims.
One of the patients, a woman from Gayan district of Paktika, whose name Reuters is withholding for security reasons, said nine members of her family had died in the earthquake. “Just I remain,” she said.
“My legs are broken, we have nothing; we eat what the Taliban give us.”
The disaster is a major test for Afghanistan’s hardline Taliban rulers, who have been shunned by many foreign governments due to concerns about human rights since they seized control of the country last year.